6/26/12 ** Another YHBA nominee & a great choice by the folks on the nominating committee.

Mr. Terupt is a fifth-grade teacher with the capacity to understand what each student needs. He fosters learning in an environment where students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own actions. When tragedy strikes, the seven focal students have to work through their sense of loss and come to grips with the ways that each may have had a role in the series of events that led to the accident. At times moving, hysterically funny, sensitive, and entirely realistic, this novel has an emotionally satisfying ending

Debut author Rob Buyea skillfully blends the voices of the seven students, with each chapter narrated by a different student. While initially disconcerting, once I was in the habit of noticing the narrator's name in the chapter title, the story flowed smoothly.